There are correlations between profession and politics, and I think it’s fair to say that baseball journalists skew liberal. This tracks with demographics. It’s a highly educated profession and wages, relative to those for their similarly educated peers, lie on the low end. Baseball journalists skew liberal, and their younger versions, spending too much time on Twitter, like me, skew progressive.
Because of this, we’ve heard a lot of “trust science” messaging from baseball writers over the last two and a half years. As is the case with this messaging in the broader, non-baseball world, the message is correct—we should trust science—but the messaging is often flawed. The messaging often presents science as black-and-white, certain, the inerrant word of a higher power. This isn’t how science works. This is how religion often works, but it’s not how science works. Science is messy, uncertain, and—when done right—in a general state of long-haul forward progress.
Newtonian mechanics is a great way of understanding physical motion. Quantum mechanics betters it at the quantum level. Plate tectonics was only really theorized a little more than one hundred years ago, and we still don’t have a great guess about why there are so many damn earthquakes in Missouri. There are plenty of things we don’t understand, and plenty of things we’re probably wrong about, but there were more of those in the past. There were almost always more of those in the past. The scientific process leads to beautiful, incredible, universe-changing progress. It’s also messy and uncertain, and it’s run by frail humans and thereby subject to human frailty in all of human frailty’s forms.
Compounding this messaging failure, and we especially see this when certain progressives are the messengers, is selectivity on what exactly qualifies as science. Climatology? Science. Epidemiology? Science. Sociology? Science. Economics? They demur. Like the prosperity gospel pastor when the lectionary hits Jesus and the rich young ruler, they move to their equivalent of the Old Testament.
All of these fields are science. All of these fields are generally pretty correct, and generally somewhat flawed and growing. We should listen to experts in all of them. We should listen to these experts in good faith. We should ask these experts to trust our capacity to handle uncertainty, and we should then—and this is important—reward that trust by handling uncertainty responsibly and not by, say, treating a 99.999% probability as worthless because it’s not 100.000%.
Another field that’s science? Sabermetrics, you little shits.
The 2022 American League MVP race is the greatest MVP race I can remember in any professional sport. I can remember good Heisman Trophy races, and behind them there is only this. This is an incredible MVP race.
On the one side, in New York, you have Aaron Judge. A titan of a man, Judge stands 6’7” and spends his working hours clobbering baseballs over various outfield fences while manning center field for the New York frickin’ Yankees. 59 times this season, Aaron Judge has sent the ball over the wall, putting him one home run behind Babe Ruth’s single-season best, two behind Roger Maris’s single-season best, and not far off the legendary, very likely steroid-enabled terrain of Barry Bonds and Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa. He leads Major League Baseball in on-base percentage, slugging percentage, and not quite batting average but he’s nearly tied for the AL lead in that, too. FanGraphs estimates him to have been worth 10.4 more wins than an average replacement-level player at his positions. Baseball Reference puts the number at 9.6. There are more than two weeks of regular season baseball to be played.
On the other side, in California, you have Shohei Ohtani. A physical and mental marvel, Ohtani came over from Japan in 2018 at the age of 23, and while injury and youth and acclimation have played themselves out, he’s still been among baseball’s best players over that time. He hits and runs with the best of them, striking 46 home runs last year and stealing 26 bases. He pitches with the best of them as well, striking out a higher percentage of batters than any other starter this year and boasting an ERA and FIP each comfortably within the major leagues’ top ten. He’s drawn comparisons to Ruth for his ability to perform as both a pitcher and a position player, and this comparison is unfair to Ohtani, whose pitching prowess dwarfs that of Ruth even in the context of Ruth’s best. Shohei Ohtani is the closest baseball has ever come to the supernatural, and baseball’s the sport which gave us Field of Dreams and two downright believable curses.
Again: It’s a magnificent MVP race. Utterly magnificent. It is once-in-a-lifetime stuff for the sport of baseball and for those of us who love this sport. We are watching Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani compete at the very same time. How lucky we are.
Saying Aaron Judge deserves the MVP makes some people upset. As you might imagine, they’re the baseball writers we referenced above.
We gave you Judge’s WAR earlier: 10.0, averaging fWAR and bWAR. Ohtani’s, combining his performance on both sides of the game, is 8.8. Still excellent. But a full win and then some below Judge’s contributions.
The Twitter sphere is behind Ohtani, and by virtue of being the baseball journalists in the Twitter sphere, they are generally a liberal, progressive bunch. They like science. They believe in statistics. And yet when the greatest sports statistic tells them they are wrong, they return the favor. No. That can’t be. WAR is wrong.
A primary argument against WAR in this context is that because Ohtani would require two replacement players, it doesn’t measure his impact appropriately. This is flawed in a few ways, but the most important way is that WAR, um, does account for this. It’s part of how it’s set up. One replacement-level player? 0.0 WAR. Two replacement-level players? 0.0 WAR. Yes, Ohtani allows the Angels to hold one other player on their roster, but the marginal impact of that player? Minimal. The active roster holds 26. Only 25 Angels have positive fWAR.
WAR, I am certain, has its flaws. WAR, I am certain, can improve. The very fact there are two competing versions speaks to this. But if you’re going to trust science…
Watching Shohei Ohtani play baseball is a marvelous joy. He does things we dreamt of doing when we were children, things as possible as Santa Claus. And somehow, Aaron Judge is better. Aaron Judge is more outstanding. Aaron Judge is more valuable. That’s a cause for anger among some. A motivation to discredit the methodology. It shouldn’t be this at all. It should only be a cause for further wonder.
Moving along:
The AL East Is Over
The Yankees haven’t clinched the AL East (the Astros and Dodgers have each clinched their West, though), and a little run here by the Blue Jays or Rays could reignite the fire, but even after dropping two of three to the Brewers this weekend, it’s hard to see the Yankees getting passed. They’re up by about a week’s worth of games, and there are only about two weeks left. It would take a wacky couple weeks for this to fall apart. Add to this that the Astros are near clinching the AL’s top seed, that the Dodgers are close to clinching the NL’s top seed, and that the Cardinals have nearly clinched the NL Central, and the playoff picture is even clearer. Where races do remain:
AL Central
The Guardians took four of five from the Twins this weekend, burying Minnesota and making this almost definitely a two-team race. They lead the White Sox by four games, with a chance to extinguish them this week in Chicago.
AL Wild Card
The Rays, Blue Jays, and Mariners are all within a loss of each other, but then it’s a five-game drop to the Orioles, with the White Sox even further back. So, this is all about seeding. Who gets a home series? Who has to play that team on the road? Who goes to Cleveland (or Chicago)? The Rays’ rest-of-season schedule remains brutal. The Mariners’ remains light.
NL Wild Card
The Brewers took those two of three from the Yanks, but they lost last night to the Mets, and while the Phillies have lost four straight, the Padres have now won three in a row, leaving Milwaukee three losses behind each. They aren’t done yet, but they’re a bad week away from us burying them, and a bad week and a half away from elimination.
NL East
The crown jewel? The NL East is still a one-game race, and these bastards are even with one another in the loss column. Consequential for playoff path, consequential for pride, just a great race all around. Big series in Atlanta the weekend after this one.
The News
The Tigers have hired Scott Harris as their new president of baseball ops, plucking him from the Giants, where he’d been general manager. With the Giants returning to earth this year (with a thud), I’m not sure we’re all recalling that they won 107 games last year out of nowhere. That was nuts. Feels dreamlike, in hindsight. Harris comes from the Theo Epstein tree, and I think we’re a little past the days of looking to guys from that tree to see what the latest innovation is in the sport, but it’s interesting that the Giants were so dang old, and so focused on pitcher reclamations. Wonder if that means anything.
Canada is evidently planning to drop its vaccine requirement for travelers to enter the country, but I’m not positive what the status is of the United States’ own requirement, and how it works for U.S. citizens compared to non-U.S. citizens. I would imagine at this point that the playoffs will be unaffected, but I’ve been surprised by Covid happenings plenty a time before.
Frankie Montas is onto the IL with shoulder inflammation, and while he’ll be eligible to return in the regular season’s final partial week, that is troubling for a Yankees team that really misses Jordan Montgomery. In brighter news, Harrison Bader’s been activated, so maybe this will yet work out. (They also got Anthony Rizzo back from his back pain-turned-migraine issue.)
Ozzie Albies, honest to God, got hurt again. Broke his pinky in his second game back. He’s going to be in a cast for three weeks, and he’ll then have to ramp back up, which doesn’t make a return impossible but does make it challenging. Everything has to go right. And he’d have to be Kyle Schwarber-esque to be effective.
The Cardinals sent Nolan Gorman down to AAA, underscoring growing concern with the St. Louis offense. This team has overperformed its on-paper potential, but it’s also gotten help from the Brewers, currently looking at a most likely final record, per FanGraphs, of 94-68. That’s a great year, but given they overperformed and given they got to play a heck of a lot of games against the Cubs, Reds, and Pirates, it’ll be surprising if they make a lot of noise in October. They did get Steven Matz back, finally, as well as Dylan Carlson, but Tyler O’Neill and Jordan Hicks are now on the IL. Hamstring strain for O’Neill.
Aaron Ashby’s starting tonight for the Brewers, and hey—if it works, a Woodruff/Burnes/Ashby top three could be enough. The Nationals won in 2019 with three studs and MacGyver, and while Ashby isn’t ’19 Patrick Corbin, the point is that the Brewers haven’t yet suffered their death sentence.
Julio Rodríguez hasn’t played since late last week, dealing with lower back soreness, and two points: First, this is a long season for a 21-year-old. He had 340 plate appearances between High-A and Double-A last year. He’s had 540 so far, and he’s got playoffs ahead. Second, the Mariners have some room for error, given the state of that Wild Card race. There are worse fates than being the AL 6-seed. Those include accidentally making your young stud worse for October. In similar news, Eugenio Suárez broke his finger and is on the IL, but there’s hope he’ll return. In the meantime, Dylan Moore’s been activated from three weeks spent nursing an oblique strain.
The Rays shut Nick Anderson down for the season officially, and Luis Patiño got scratched from a Triple-A start. They have the depth to keep trotting high-potential guys out there, but that pitching staff has taken on a lot of water.
Michael Kopech’s onto the IL for the White Sox with shoulder inflammation. In a weird twist, it appears the Sox didn’t do this retroactively, even though they could have? Maybe I’ve missed an update on this.
The Cubs
Frank Schwindel has been released, designated for assignment over the weekend alongside Sean Newcomb (who was outrighted to Iowa) to make 40-man roster room for Adbert Alzolay, who was activated from the 60-day IL, and Esteban Quiroz, a 30-year-old infielder getting his first MLB shot (hope for the best with him, don’t expect much). Seiya Suzuki is on the paternity list, which is exciting. Best wishes to him and his family.
It’s sad about Schwindel, but we knew even last summer that this was possible. The bad part? It’s also possible for a guy like Christopher Morel, down the line. Morel’s a different beast—better-regarded prospect, tons younger—but there’s a correlation between prospect hype and eventual performance, and while it’s not one-to-one, Morel still has a lot to prove in the longevity-of-performance department.
Nico Hoerner continues to not play, though he isn’t on the IL. Evidently the MRI on his shoulder wasn’t great, but we aren’t looking at a terrible injury right now. The Cubs seem to feel a 28-man roster is plenty big enough at this point, especially with them not in a playoff chase, but they also seem to think it’s at least possible Hoerner will play again before the end of the year. Hayden Wesneski was unbelievable in his start over the weekend, in a bright spot.
The South Bend Cubs trail Lake County one game to nil in the Midwest League Championship series. It’s a best of three, so tonight’s is an elimination game. The Tennessee Smokies start their division series against the Rocket City Trash Pandas, which I’m assuming is Huntsville? What a name.
No More One and Done?
Shams Charania reported yesterday that the NBA and the NBPA are expected to lower the draft eligibility age back to 18, possibly as soon as the 2024 draft. This would make this year’s collegiate one-and-dones the last ones in the traditional meaning of the term, though players would still be free to go pro after their freshman year. It’s a big headline, and if it happens (Adrian Wojnarowski, whom we prefer because he was nice to us when we asked if he wanted to join our NIT pool last spring, has reported it won’t be changing anytime all that soon) it will change the college game a little bit. But, we’re a long way from the days of those all-freshman-ish John Calipari teams. The Zion Williamson team didn’t make the Final Four. College basketball shouldn’t feel remarkably different from how it was this past season. It’s kind of wild that’s the case, after how much one-and-done changed dynamics in its early years, but here we’ve landed.
A 22-3 Run
After Sunday night’s victory, the Packers have now beaten the Bears in 22 of the teams’ last 25 meetings, including the 2010 NFC Championship. That is nuts.
It was a good win by the Pack, who still showed some vulnerabilities but looked like a much better team than the one which went to Minneapolis. Good to have Elgton Jenkins back, good to have Allen Lazard back, hopefully David Bakhtiari is both back and effective at some point, though it’s admittedly getting concerning. Whether the result means the Packers are great or that the Bears are woeful remains to be seen, but we’re probably well on our way to a little bit of both.
Other NFL thoughts:
- Trey Lance’s injury makes a weird situation in San Francisco even weirder. What happens if Jimmy Garoppolo plays well? What if he plays fine, and the team has success? Just a little wacky out there.
- It looks like the Broncos’ situation in Seattle wasn’t a fluke, as though Denver got past the Texans, it sure took a lot of work. Part of this might be that Russell Wilson just isn’t all that good, or at least not good enough to really elevate the team. Part of it might be a failure to mesh. A lot of it, though, is that upgrading a seven-win team from a bottom-ten quarterback to a top-ten quarterback just doesn’t necessarily make them a playoff outfit.
- It was fun to see the Jets beat the Browns, and I liked seeing Lamar Jackson retweet a Joe Flacco celebration video. One of those little things that makes you think Flacco’s a good guy.
- On the topic of Jackson: How in the world did the Ravens lose that game? Allowing 42 points to those Dolphins is a bit terrifying for Baltimore. That, or I have underestimated Miami (famous last words).
- The Colts are terrible? And the Jaguars are the best team in the AFC South? That seems to be the read at the moment.
- Tom Brady missed a chunk of time in training camp and is playing under a new coach. I wouldn’t be too concerned about the Bucs’ offense if I was in a position to ever be concerned about the Bucs’ offense. (Akiem Hicks is out this weekend in addition to probably Mike Evans, by the way. Good for the Pack on that front, though we wish Hicks the best with the plantar fascia.) Wild that Jameis Winston is playing with a broken back. I would not want to play with a broken back.
- The Vikings looking as bad as they did against the Eagles makes me pull my collar a little regarding the Pack, but it does jive with what we know about Minnesota (they’re inconsistent) and what we thought about that Week 1 game (the Packers played carefully, played badly, and still were two specific plays away from a win).
- Holy Bills.
Iowa State Beats Ohio
We’ve talked a lot about college football’s Week 3 elsewhere, but we haven’t talked much about the Cyclones, and…
They played a great game. Did exactly what we wanted them to do. Took it to Ohio early, got key players some rest, now it’s on to Big 12 play.
The fact that this is Iowa State’s first 3-0 nonconference season since 2012 is relieving, much like the win at Kinnick. For a lot of those years, there was a loss to Iowa, and in the 2014 season, ISU made the mistake of scheduling North Dakota State. The end result is that this was a milestone win that should not have been a milestone win.
I’m trying to keep my enthusiasm publicly tempered on Hunter Dekkers, but it’s hard to do. He looks so good back there, and even his play against Iowa wasn’t disappointing for a guy making his first career start against an FBS team. He limited his mistakes enough, and he made plays when necessary. So far, he hasn’t tried to do too many things, which is massive. He doesn’t need to do too many things. Not so far, anyway.
The Cyclones will have Cartevious Norton and Jake Remsburg back on Saturday, with Remsburg the more important name between the pair. There are going to be other missing players, but they’re all on the periphery right now. For all intents and purposes, this is full-strength Iowa State welcoming Baylor to Ames.
More on Baylor later in the week, but ISU’s a deserving favorite, and that has as much to do with the Bears as it does with the Cyclones. ISU’s had two tough trips to Waco in the last three seasons, so it’s not like Baylor “has Iowa State’s number” or anything like that, and a team that got beat by the team who couldn’t hang with Oregon is far from terrifying. Movelor—our college football model’s rating system—is high as heck on Oklahoma State, but on Baylor, the other recent Big 12 darling? They’re right there with the Cyclones. This is one of the tougher games on the schedule, but from what we’re seeing, there are really four games left that are close to toss-ups, and this is one of them. Better still, unlike Kansas or TCU, we have a good idea of Baylor’s ceiling, having seen them lose to one probably solid opponent. This is a game the Cyclones should win, and winning games you should is a big deal as a program.
Conference Realignment Buzz!
Two big things to fight about today:
First, George Kliavkoff doubled down on his “guarantee” today that no Pac-10 schools will join the Big 12, which is an easy thing to say when your conference will disintegrate and your job will no longer exist if any school starts that avalanche.
Second, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State canceled Bedlam. Not this year, but when Oklahoma joins the SEC. It is impossible, they say. There is no space on the schedule. They will one day schedule Tarleton State and Southeastern Louisiana to fill the gap.
It’s a silly premise, that teams can’t play meaningful nonconference rivalries. USC plays Notre Dame. Iowa State plays Iowa. In the SEC alone, South Carolina plays Clemson and Georgia plays Georgia Tech and Florida plays Florida State and Kentucky plays Louisville, with the SEC going so far as to schedule around these games to give them marquee status. Will this continue as the SEC switches to a nine-game schedule? Maybe not. But it’s not going to be because Oklahoma, or Oklahoma State, or Florida, or whoever it is can’t do it. It’s going to be because they want to play Norfolk State instead. And with the 12-team playoff on its way, there’ll be less reason for that than ever.
Herm Edwards Never Won Anywhere
Arizona State didn’t play badly against Oklahoma State in Week 2, but after they lost at home to Eastern Michigan (no, not sneakily a good MAC team), it became clear 2022 was not going to be the turning point for the high-potential program. With a convenient ongoing NCAA investigation centered on allegations ASU hosted recruits in greater Phoenix during the Covid non-contact period, the school fired Herm Edwards.
There’s a temptation here to say, “See? That ‘Program CEO’ model isn’t going to work in the college game,” referencing how Edwards’s approach was to be more delegatory than, say, Nick Saban. A better explanation? Herm Edwards isn’t a very good football coach. He got the Jets to the playoffs three times, but in his final year there, he went 4-12, and that was back when the Bills and Dolphins were bad. In Kansas City, he averaged a 5-11 record.
So, maybe the model was a problem. Maybe it’s a bad idea for the college game. It’s impossible to say. We haven’t seen a good coach try it.
Non-Playoff Drivers
NASCAR’s first playoff round was swept by non-playoff drivers, and this probably isn’t good. You lose a little excitement in the playoffs if the field is this wide open. Maybe it’ll even out as teams adjust to the new car and some imbalance returns, maybe it won’t, but it doesn’t feel like a great recipe for the playoffs right now. Also, we were as happy as everyone else for Chris Buescher, but does this actually mean anything for RFK?
Kevin Harvick, Austin Dillon, Kyle Busch, and Tyler Reddick were eliminated, and the latter three of those did not go down in some weird, Richard Childress-ordered pseudo-murder-suicide. On to Texas next week, which seems to be the one intermediate track not enjoying the new configuration. At least we’ve got Talladega, Las Vegas, and Homestead-Miami left. The others might be clunkers, just like Bristol—very much a war of attrition, as opposed to a race—unfortunately was.
**
Viewing schedule, second screen rotation in italics:
MLB (of playoff race significance, also the Cubs)
- 6:40 PM EDT: Cubs @ Miami, Sampson vs. López (MLB TV)
- 6:40 PM EDT: Houston @ Tampa Bay, Javier vs. McClanahan (MLB TV)
- 6:45 PM EDT: Toronto @ Phialdelphia, Stripling vs. Gibson (MLB TV)
- 7:20 PM EDT: Washington @ Atlanta, Corbin vs. Morton (MLB TV)
- 7:40 PM EDT: New York (NL) @ Milwaukee, Carrasco vs. Ashby (TBS)
- 8:10 PM EDT: Cleveland @ Chicago (AL), Civale vs. Cease (MLB TV)
- 9:40 PM EDT: Seattle @ Oakland, Castillo vs. Sears (MLB TV)
- 9:40 PM EDT: St. Louis @ San Diego, Wainwright vs. Clevinger (MLB TV)
